


hair of fire

by rayfelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Ravenclaw Harry, au - harry with red hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry had the red hair of his mother. The face of his father. The green eyes of Avada Kedavra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hair of fire

Light brown skin and the face ( _except the eyes, all except the eyes_ ) from his father. Shape of his eyes and messy, fire-red hair of his mother. Eyes the color of killing curse green.

Harry Potter – The Boy Who Loved. Harry Potter – The Boy Who Suffered.

Each time Petunia looked at the small, frail child she never wanted, she saw the shadows of her sister and her husband, the reminder of a gift she could never have. She shivered whenever Harry’s hair covered his face and the bright green peeked through the redred _red_ strands. The child was a predator, one that would one day rip out her throat, if he so wished.

And it was all her fault, the fate she had earned.

Petunia knew.

And then Petunia cried, because she would have loved the child with the eyes of a hunter and the hair of fire. If only magic did not stand between the two of them.

…

When Harry returned to the world of magic he was already slightly off - hardened and grown up more than he should have. The darkness of his cupboard and the quiet, hissed tales of the garden snakes had helped him make promises about the future, about his own life.

Voldemort was something new and dark, a stain on both the history of the country and his own life. His fame a poison that separated him from the rest. How could they all celebrate something that had robbed Harry of his parents? How could they put him on the pedestal of a hero, when he grew up knowing only hate and his own uselessness?

The magical world was wrong. He will not save it for another time. No matter what.

…

The hat wanted to put him in Slytherin – for those of ambition and cunning.

But Harry thought of the old picture of his mother, with her eyes warm and kind, color of a deep, green forest and her hair curled around her face like vines and refused to accept. He knew he was Slytherin in heart ( _the books he had read, the way Petunia looked at him_ ), but he would not fit. With his father’s face, his mother’s hair and the eyes of _Avada Kedavra_.

The house of his parents was too painful. Too full of different kinds of expectations.

Ravenclaw – for those of wit and learning. He donned the colors of blue and silver once the hat was removed from his head.

Later, when Harry looked at the teachers sat before them, on each side of the headmaster, his gaze met with the potions master’s. Between shadowy wisps and faraway laughter he could see the memory of his mother in the man’s eyes, the shock of remembering. His mother’s hair and his father’s face. The eyes of death.

No, Slytherin would not pave his way to greatness. Not when he would be judged based on memories stuck in a distant history.

…

Harry had no close friends in Hogwarts. He was a loner, an unknown. There were shadows lurking behind his gaze, a savage kind of protectiveness of what was his and his own body – thin, small, frail, and decorated with pale scars that stood out on the light brown of his skin.

But he was in peace with all of it. He was a carnivore. A lone wolf hidden between the sheep.

The teachers remembered of his father and mother by the things he had inherited, recalled the war whenever they though too long. But magic was always there, always accepting and always warm. To magic it mattered nothing what Harry looked like, how he had been changed. It became his friend, his safe place and his power.

He was used to being lonely. He was used to being stronger than the rest.

…

He stood before the troll and bared his teeth. Savage. A wolf in the skin of a human boy. The Gryffindor girl was crying in one of the stalls, now from fear rather than the dull hurt from before. Harry had read the books, quietly by himself on the dusty library floors; he knew the spells that tore, destroyed and _hurt_. If only by name and incantation.

 The blood was dark against the stark white of the bathroom tiles.

But the girl was safe and laughing hysterically as the two of them ran through the empty halls. The power that buzzed through his veins felt so _right_ ( _like another boy, some fifty years ago, had felt_ ). Harry wondered if he could bend it, claim it, use it. This magic that could fight for him, when he could not.

The teeth his wolf had missed.

…

Hermione was pack from them on. Broken in her own way. Shunned and ignored, a weak pup next to the monster bathed in red fire that she stood side by side to since the troll. And she knew, in her weakness she knew that Harry was not human, was not _normal_ ( _the Dursleys had it all figured out, in the end_ ).

And Harry knew she didn’t care. Not when he protected what was his until death and even more.

They did not go down the trap door, guarded by the lapdog of Underworld. Harry refused to lay his life down for the world that celebrated his loss and his pain. He refused to become a part of the manipulation and lies of the old man who thought he was God of this world. This universe.

Harry’s life.

Aunt Petunia was right, Harry thought when he listened about the dead teacher and the stolen treasure, he really was without feeling, an empty shell. A monster. A freak. With the eyes of death and hair of fire and blood.

…

Petunia ran from him, in her own home. Dudley screamed whenever he saw red and wild hair slink along the flowery walls of the house. Vernon tried to hit Harry, once. The magic of the wild that lashed out ( _Harry used no wand when he felt his teeth shifting and taking place_ ) destroyed the kitchen. And along Vernon’s hands.

The blood on these white tiles was lighter, dirtier. Perhaps Malfoy was right about the blood grown from mud, about the mud that still stayed in the veins of those who did not have the gift.

But then there was Hermione and Harry’s own mother. And the boy decided that in the end blood mattered little. It was power and magic and strength that had meaning. He was a beast because of his magic. Everyone will _fear_ him because of his magic, of his control. Of his wild.

And so Harry ended his twelfth summer with his hair in tangles, strands falling around his face. With his nails sharp and ready to tear apart anything that followed.

…

He heard the whispers in the walls even before the letters of red appeared on the cold stone. He stalked the hallways during the cold nights and searched for the hunter that was more than him. Bigger, stronger. _Something more_ in every way possible.

On one such night Harry broke Lockheart’s legs with a well aimed spell and saved a girl with eyes of midnight blue. Afterwards he obliviated the fraud and left him in that closet, with broken bones and bleeding wounds. Monsters like that one deserved nothing but hatred and loathing. Even Harry ( _for he was a different kind of monster_ ) felt that it was far less than the man deserved.

Luna became another member of his pack. Another strange creature that seemed to know him. Understand him. She respected the monster and Harry, in turn, bared his fangs and _hunted_. Quietly and through the shadows.

…

The basilisk was cool against his hand. A deadly beast, curled around the tiny, scrawny human being that Harry really was. Fresh death wafted through the air, in the damp chamber buried underneath the school. Lockheart would never be missed anyway.

The diary burned on the ground, next to the breathing body of the taken girl – Ginny.

Harry saved the snake and the girl, destroyed the imprint of Tom Riddle left behind. Revenge, small and meaningless in the face of the horror he had gone though just because of one man’s selfish reasons. He had not wanted to do it for the girl, but it just happened along the way. She had always looked at him like he was a hero bathed in gold and diamonds.

He hated people like that. Hated the people who painted him in the legends and lies of the wizarding world and didn’t bother to see deeper, the real him.

…

The dog was afraid of Harry. The boy just smiled at the sight of those fangs, wide and insane, green eyes alight. Marge never stood a chance, not when Petunia whispered quiet warnings into the woman’s ear and stole quick glances towards her nephew.

When Harry’s eyes had met those of the black and mangy dog later than night, when the air was cold and biting, there was interest. His magic thrummed with recognition. The dog stepped forward and Harry let it sniff him, to press against his legs. Something old and familiar was nestled between them, like spiderwebs forgotten in time. A memory long since buried.

The warning about escaped criminal was forgotten. Harry didn’t care about that.

But the dog left soon enough, leaving behind a promise of return and a mysterious kind of acceptance. Of Harry’s monster, the wolf and the cold indifference wrapped around the boy’s heart.

…

His boggart took on the shape of Dumbledore. The creature wheezed out sonnets of destinies carved in stone and duty to all wizard kind, rasped about the need to return to the house were abuse was normal before his magic woke. Harry had heard of this speech before, from a screaming aunt Petunia (- _your hair, your ugly, horrible hair! we had no choice, he made us take you-_ ) and then from the mouth of Dumbledore himself.

Lupin talked long with him. Rehearsed words and taught ways to deal with fear, spontaneous confessions about the time _when everything was better and they were young and happy_. Harry found out about the time his parents were free, when there was no shadow of war looming over them.

After he had been born, Harry had grown hair as black as coal. James’ color, James’ hair. And now he had his mother’s hair, Lily’s hair. Red as her blood that protected him from the evil that was crawling after his footsteps.

Harry started learning the patronus anyway. Because some fears could only be killed by a spell. Not a therapy.

…

Too twisted for Gryffindor. Too upfront for Slytherin. Too shut-off for Hufflepuff. Too cruel for Ravenclaw.

Too something. Too much, too little, too _something_. Never enough, never just human.

But that was fine with Harry. He had his pack, his little band of broken little things, abused little things. A pack full of kids who didn’t belong, who were different – but not bad. His pack, his friends. And that was fine.

Neville joined his merry little band of dysfunctional little children. There was something jaded about the boy forced to live in the image of his father, about the boy that found comfort in the soft soil and damp grass.

The same black dog from the summer had asked Harry to take this child in. The same black dog, who was not at all a dog. But Harry knew when to keep secrets close. He had done so his whole life and this, this was bigger than him.

Peter Pettigrew was a ghost on the faded parchment of the map. But the map did not show ghosts. Lupin had said so.

…

The full moon was bright that night. Neville’s leg twisted the wrong way. Luna and Hermione raised their wands towards the heart of the traitor, two girls standing as protectors before a killer, a spy, a sinner. Sirius Black breathed in the relief of belief and acidic taste of revenge.

Harry stood in the doorway, hair wild and eyes even more so. Green eyes, death eyes, _Avada Kedavra_. No mercy, no repentance. Not for those who had started the downfall. Not for little Peter, who sold out his brothers and sister. The little coward that boiled in jealousy and weakness, never good enough. Well, not then and never now.

_My hair, it’s the same color as my mother’s blood._ Harry laughed in the face of insanity that fell like a house of cards. Sirius kept Lupin ( _Remus, call me Remus_ ) at bay and away. The call of the ancient wolf was a seductive mistress.

They bound the rat. Imprisoned it, away from the prying hands of old Dumbledore and the Dementors. No werewolf ran wild that night. Neither did the black dog.

…

Madness only bread more madness.

Sirius Black said not guilty, offered the true slave of Voldemort on a silver platter and was released. The court did not give guardianship, but Harry was used to being let down by the world. There were only so few that he trusted. His little pack, his friends with invisible scars.

His magic, laced with dark and grey tones. Nothing wrong with that, Sirius swore to the mirror image of his dead friend. It hurt, this new kind of play of pretend. A damaged man and a warped kid. What a pair they would make, had they traveled these unmarked trails together.

The Dursleys trembled in the face of a wild, wild, _wild_ monster and the criminal, the madman. Two forces now stood before them. Stronger, ruthless, armed with magic that could destroy without a sound. This was their cross to bear, their punishment.

What comes around goes around. Harry knew how to use his fangs now.

…

His refusal rang clear between the four tables and slid through the cracks in the stones. The blue fires of the Cup played tick tack toe on his face, turned his hair pale and strange as Harry stood there, listening to another scheme played on the expanse of his life. Dumbledore’s face had grown cold and distant, a mask of worry glued on instead of the twinkle that invaded the mind.

Magic flared around Harry, a barrier between him and the rest. A warning to those who did not understand denial and _no_.

A binding contract. A necessity, a chore. The Boy Who Lived, the new Hope. The Boy Who Was Forced. New titles piled atop of the old ones, new expectations laid before his feet and carved into his skin. Rage not misplaced burned around him, through the fingers clasped around his arm.

For the first time Dumbledore saw what he had created. A shadow of Tom Riddle reflected in the eyes of death green, framed by hair of blood and fire and love.

And he was terrified.

Terrified of the plans he had laid himself. Terrified of a child barely fourteen.

…

Harry entered the maze last and left it first. He had not participated in the previous tasks. He stood in the entrance of the dragon’s cage and with his bare feet touching the icy waters of Black Lake, stood throughout both tasks.

He didn’t even try to get the egg. He simply stared into the murky depth of the water and hissed his inability to swim. Zero points. Harry did not care – why should he? He had taken part in the contest; the details were all that mattered.

After all, weren’t the details the ones that had denied his refusal for this game of life and death?

And so he entered the maze last and left it first.

The other champions gave into defeat with green lights and bitter tears. Fame and fortune was not worth the red marks left on pale skin and soft flesh. Because the terror stayed, in dreams and demons that followed in the glare of the sun.

Cedric had come back barely alive.  The cup had been a different kind of trap.

…

Order of the Phoenix was nothing more than a group of unruly children, trying to catch up to the world. They talked about secret weapons and hidden corridors, about Voldemort rising and once more planting seeds of terror in the hearts of many.

Cedric’s blood had been the catalyst. It should have been Harry. As always, it should have been Harry.

Harry spent his time sitting in dark rooms scattered around the Grimmauld place, avoiding the prying eyes of Ginny and her brothers. He ran away from Dumbledore’s advice ( _because he was no martyr, no beacon of light and justice_ ), hid in the corners to never see the visions of his father reflected in Sirius’ eyes. There was only so much he could take before the wolf would start to seek blood.

He was alone, without his pack. No better than the Dursley house.

…

Umbridge tried to scare him with carved words of forced order. Another set of scars across his skin, another set of proof that no one could be trusted. His own bones held Harry up, his own magic burned to keep him alive.

The world was a cruel place, merciless teacher.

But Harry was a good student. His magic burned away the paper, together with his suffering and life. It laughed in the face of a demon dressed in pink, tore away her piece by piece. The basilisk hissed his thanks for a meal prepared. No one heard of the woman again.

Harry was a monster. And he cared little of morals and feelings.

…

_I will not tell lies_.

His pack saw and started burning with the kind of protective rage Harry had never seen. His teachers and protectors ( _but they were not, never had been and never will_ ) saw and looked away. Away from the shame, away from the problem.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

The ministry came and searched the castle for Umbridge. Up and down, left and right. They knocked on every stone and wooden door, asked every student questions to find out where the woman was. Harry showed them his hand and laughed - he lied while painting the lies to be the truth.

Just like the ministry. Just like the whole world.

New bones were found a month later, on the edge of the forest. White as new snow and brittle with the disgust that Umbridge had been born with. Her bones. Her death.

…

Harry went to the ministry alone. Visions and whispered orders about long, black corridors haunted his dreams and days alike. Voldemort’s orders, Dumbledore’s ignorance. Whichever it may be. Harry just wanted to get it done with, stop the visions that he had kept quiet about since the start of the summer,

Because why should he speak, when speaking never saved him.

The milky white ball of prophecy was warm against his cold fingers. It buzzed with ancient magic, special kind of magic. Dreams and visions and warning signs swirled inside the endless mist. – _born as the seventh month dies_ – His life already decided then, even before he had been born. – _neither can live while the other survives_ – His role carved in stone with his parents’ blood.

With vengeance and defiance Harry destroyed the little ball against the black of the hall’s floor. Watched the white mists floating up, up, up and then dissolve. The prophecy died and he will live. Murder was nothing new to him.

…

Red hair and _Avada Kedavra_ eyes. His father’s face.

Red eyes and distorted body. Soul split in pieces.

Two sides of the same coin. Two monsters created by the world that they lived in. Nurtured by the manipulation and meddling of an old man that knew too much and too little. Prophesized enemies, born opposites. But were they really? Was there really a line that separated the two so, that they belonged to either dark or light?

Vooldemort sneered as he learned about the destruction of the weapon, the answer to all his questions. The little ball had been the key to his victory. Something real and corporal, something that he could hold onto and declare his reasons just.

Harry grinned wild, the whites of his teeth glinting in the eerie green of the ministry’s lights. With his wand raised the boy mouthed around the words of _Avada Kedavra_ and watched as the Dark Lord barely warped around the curse.

Two could play this game of tag.

…

Harry did not return to the Dursleys, neither did he go back to Hogwarts. He knew everything he needed to know, his magic alive and breathing in the power from its surroundings. There were soul pieces he needed to find, a murderer he needed to kill.

Once and for all.

Too bad legilimency could work both ways, when fought correctly. Voldemort never had thought that a fifteen year old child would invade his mind. And now the biggest secret of them all was out in the open between the two of them. Unguarded, unsafe.

The diary, the locket, the ring. The cup, the snake, Voldemort himself.

Two down, four to go. One hidden in Grimmauld place. Regulus forgotten in the history, together with his bravery and courage to stand up to what is wrong. From the shadows he may have acted, but sometimes that was the best kind of attack.

_Avada Kedavra_ once more reflected in Harry’s eyes. Kreacher breathed his gratitude in hiding Harry from the Order, which still infested the house like mold.

…

The snake was next.

Quietly Harry had crawled though the forests and rivers in search of hidden caves, treasures buried and denied the light of day. And Voldemort had been looking for him in return, hunting the child that dared to stand against him, fight him. For revenge that festered deep within.

Nagini’s head fell on the frosty December grass. A soul piece burned out under the judging moon and stars. One step closer. The run from Voldemort’s wrath had begun.

Harry howled his victory into the rising sun, throat sore and fingers bloody with unshed shame. Smeared with mud he had finally grown into the skin he had been forced into. His lungs breathed and his muscles coiled, body taught in ways of violence and power. He was above them. He was _more_.

…

Sirius destroyed the cup. Harry never asked how the man knew and how he had done it. The boy did not care, for he had stopped caring a long time ago. The shadows whispered to him about exile and Lordship. Old Laws had been put to play.

And then there was one. And Harry’s soul ached for fresh blood, for retribution that he deserved. Damned be Dumbledore’s ideals about forgiveness and mercy. Harry played by the rules of his own game, one that he always won. There was nothing left to give to the one that had made the world crumble.

The cloak, the wand, the stone.

Old legends told to children from the old mouths of many tales. Deathly Hallows given to the one that had earned the respect of Death. Master of Death they called him, the Chosen One they cursed him. A way to survive and stand back up once a heart stopped ticking.

Harry had the cloak. But he did not need eternal life.

…

Godric’s Hallow had bloomed into welcoming spring when they met once more. At the place where it all ended and began. Near seventeen years later and this murky chase finally came to an end. One beast against one monster, each painted in the colors of war and resolution.

Harry’s pack guarded their battlefield. Broken children grown into a force of fire that burned down everything that came close. How proud the boy was, how pleased he was to see the survival vibrating in their eyes, their magic.

_Avada Kedavra_ against _Avada Kedavra_. And they both fell to the ground, brother wands singing a song of homecoming.

…

His parents met Harry at the crossing. His father’s skin and face, his mother’s hair. Eyes the shade of death.

And they were so proud. So proud for their son that was different but still theirs. A carnivore with whipped back and carved reminders on his skin. For the first time Harry cried and confessed the cold and the loneliness, the pain buried deep within him.

Lily was soft and so kind. She kissed him on the cheek, repeated how strong and brave he had been. Reassured that Harry’s life was his alone – the magical world deserved nothing. Her red hair soft and laughter as pure as summer, she smelled of fresh lilies.

James’s hug had been bone-breaking and nostalgic like the seas washing along sandy shores. With voice still young ( _too young for death, too young for such heavy sacrifices_ ) he promised a better future, pride for everything Harry had done. It did not matter that his son’s hands were read with death; for those were not humans he had killed.

Back to life the boy went, warmed to the core by the spirits of his parents and heroes. A wolf no longer alone, a child no longer abandoned.

…

The Boy Who Lived Twice.

They called him that since they saw him rise after the second death curse. The memory of Harry spitting out blood from his mouth and aiming his wand at Voldemort’s heart erased itself from the memories of those that were there to see. To watch and judge yet again.

Because a battle of wills needed an audience. Critics that later sneered and pointed out the mistakes and missed steps of the one who won, as well as the one who lost.

Voldemort died like a normal person. His body cold and stiff laid in the mud, his eyes wide open and reflecting the sky above. A hollow victory in the face of everything. A fulfilling deed for Harry, The Boy Who Fought.

End came to war, to schemes, to secret societies built on the bricks of revolution.

End came quietly, slowly. Almost boring was the result of years worth of meaningless struggle.

…

Harry had the red hair of his mother. The face of his father. The green eyes of _Avada Kedavra_.

He was a child of love, of courage and of mercilessness.

He won the war and then left the magical world to rot in its own filth and stagnation. Like he had promised the day he first stepped in Diagon alley.

He lived a calm life, a peaceful life afterwards. With his pack with him and away from the world. With magic drumming along to the rhythm of the world.

And he was proud of the red hair of his mother, the face of his father and his eyes that reminded many of death itself.

For those three things shaped him, guarded him, let him survive.


End file.
